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Gong Li's citizenship switch stirs outrage in China
2008-11-11
BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese actress Gong Li's decision to become a Singapore citizen sparked an online debate in China Tuesday, with many branding her a traitor but others defending the star. Gong, who served recently as a Chinese parliament delegate, collected her Singaporean citizenship over the weekend, a lawmaker in the city-state told AFP on Monday. The move requires her to forsake her Chinese citizenship, and the decision triggered some fierce condemnation of the 43-year-old star of "Farewell My Concubine" and "Memoirs of a Geisha". "All traitors will be nailed to history's mast of shame. We should resolutely reject any futher contact with such people," on person said in a chat forum on the popular portal Sohu.com. Added another: "Traitors like this don't even love their own country. These people were only fake countrymen of ours. Let them slink off to other countries and die!" The state-run Xinhua news agency said speculation that she was actively seeking foreign citizenship resulted in Gong being left off the list of delegates for the 2008 session of parliament earlier this year. However, many people also expressed understanding for Gong's decision, noting the pressure such stars face in China, and making veiled criticisms of life in the communist country. "Why doesn't anyone ask why people want to emigrate? We see one Chinese person after another take US citizenship," one person said on Sohu. "Why don't we see Americans taking Chinese citizenship?" Another suggested that many of the critics would leap at the chance to emigrate like a moth to the flame. "My compatriots, as you blab here, can you really say you love your country? Ask yourself, how many of you are not moths as well?" The backlash comes after a spike in nationalist sentiments in China this year. Those passions were partly triggered by Western criticism of a military crackdown on Tibetans following an uprising against Chinese rule in March. Chinese Internet forums were then filled with anti-Western diatribes that the ruling Communist Party allowed to flourish.
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